Ex-nurses' aide sentenced for fraud, mistreatment

TROY, Kan. (AP) - A former nurses' aide from Atchison has been sentenced to two years in prison for Medicaid fraud and other charges.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in a news release that 26-year-old Janelle Lynn Sakakihara was sentenced Thursday for fraud and two counts of felony mistreatment of a dependent adult.

Investigators say Sakakihara abused several people in September 2017 while she worked as a nurses' aide at a Highland Health Care and Rehabilitation Center.

She was among 10 people in seven Kansas counties charged in September 2018 as part of a statewide enforcement sweep that focused on people committing Medicaid fraud, stealing narcotics and/or mistreating dependent adults while working in health care facilities or board-and-care facilities that receive Medicaid funding.

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